Graphics Cards Guide

Introducing the Cards

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

Like most high-end graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 570 is a massive card coming in at about 10.5-inches long - roughly the same as a GeForce GTX 580.

Physically, the GeForce GTX 570 looks remarkably similar to the GeForce GTX 580, which is not surprising because it employs the same vapor chamber technology cooler. And if you recall, this custom-designed vapor chamber cooler also uses a specially-tuned fan that generates a lower pitch so that its less intrusive. Furthermore, the cooling cover is slightly angled so as to help route air to the rear brackets when used in an SLI configuration. Clearly, NVIDIA is taking cooling and acoustics very seriously with their new GTX 500 series cards.

The only major physical difference you’ll notice is that the GeForce GTX 570 requires two 6-pin PCIe power connectors as opposed to the GeForce GTX 580’s 8 and 6-pin configuration. As such, NVIDIA recommends that the GeForce GTX 570 be paired with a 550W PSU at minimum as opposed to a 600W PSU for the GTX 580.

The Palit GeForce GTX 570 Sonic Platinum

It’s launch day and Palit already has a customized edition of the GeForce GTX 570 ready. This is the Palit GeForce GTX 570 Sonic Platinum and it comes with a custom designed dual-fan cooler and is factory overclocked to boot. Core clock speeds have been bumped to 800MHz from 732MHz which also brings shader clock speeds up to 1600MHz from 1464MHz. Memory clock speeds have been given a boost too, up to 4000MHz DDR from 3800MHz DDR.